Fifty Years After By George Kaiser, Düsseldorf(Part Two) Up until the departure of the train from Arad, I still hoped that I would be released because I was too young. It was midnight and January 30, 1945 had begun with us packed inside the cattle car. It was my seventeenth birthday. I had become seventeen…
Category: Second World War
Slave Labour in Russia: Fifty Years After
Fifty Years After By George Kaiser, Düsseldorf On August 23rd in 1944, Romania broke its military pact with Germany and stood on the side of the Soviets. In just a few short weeks the Soviet Army overran all the territory that Romania controlled. This was done in spite of the fierce resistance of the…
A Young Man’s Diary
A Portion of the Diary Of Andreas Toth (Andreas Toth was born in Semlak, Romania on Septeber 16, 1928, the only child of Andreas Toth and his wife the former Julianna Bartolf. Following his completion of Public School in Semlak, he went to the Trade School in Temesvar and High School in Detta. He died…
A Tale of Two Sisters: Gadacs and Szil
The following are excerpts from Gott Ist Getreu, by Henry A. Fischer in a limited edition and self published work in June of 1988. GADÁCS AND SZIL: The Two Sisters The village of Döröschke’s foundations were firmly rooted in the clay soil, to maintain a foothold on the descending hills upon which it was…
Tiszalok: The Second and Third Act
Introduction: (For those readers who first heard the story of Tiszalók in the first posting on this site we now offer what we believe is the last act of the sufferings and destruction of the Danube Swabian communities following the Second World War. In this Second Act we present a summary of the…
Bonyhad: A Market Town in the Tolna
Bonyhad: A Market Town in the Tolna The first landlord of the area in which Bonyhád would be located following the liberation of the area from the Turks, was Baron Schilson. His landholdings at Bonyhád also included the abbey of Cikó. His first attempt to colonize his holdings was to secure Magyar settlers from…
The Labour Camp at Tiszalok
The following is a result of my summarization and compilation of several articles that appeared in several sources, including Unsere Post that first appeared in the early 1990s. The reason for my interest in these reports on Tiszalök resulted from my conversations with my Godfather’s two sons who were prisoners there; John…
Gerenyes in Baranya County
Gerényes is a small village of with some one hundred and twenty houses, the majority of which were those of Swabian Lutherans (380) while the minority were Roman Catholic Magyars. The two nationalities took turns in electing a Richter. Each group maintained their own language and customs. In October 1944 large numbers…
Bikacs
The first settlers in Bikacs arrived much earlier than officially reported in 1735-1736 and unlike other settlements in Tolna County it was the only totally Heidebauren community both from its inception and for most of its history. The origins of this group of settlers were from the Counties of Vas, Moson and the…
The Destruction of German Lutheranism in Swabian Turkey
This article is based on “The Destruction of German Lutheranism In Swabian Turkey (Tolna, Baranya and Somogy Counties) by Heinrich Keri and translated byHenry Fischer. During the deportation to East Germany,on the night of May 28th, 1948 my sisterElisabeth gave birth to her son Konrad asthe rolling, packed, sealed cattle cars movedacross Czechoslovakia into an…